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Megathlin: Vexed: Principles or ideals?

House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., lit up the airwaves with his decision to launch an inquiry into the radicalization of American Muslims.

The noisy national argument about the fairness of this action leaves a lot of Americans wondering who holds the high ground. I’m one of them.

On the first day of the hearings, I watched the emotional testimony of Congressman Keith Ellison, D-Minn. He’s the first Muslim American to serve in the U.S. House.

He was recounting the story of a Muslim-American first responder who had given his life trying to rescue other Americans from the World Trade Center on 9/11. I confess that I felt little sympathy for his tears. But I knew that I needed to try to understand the source of them.

So I called upon the only thing that could put me into an admittedly fuzzy approximation of his situation — my imagination.

Allow me some leeway in the following scenario if you will. No analogy is exact.

Suppose I were a Christian living in China, a person with deep American roots who, for whatever reason, was born and reared in China, as a Chinese citizen. Suppose my faith required me to wear a cross on a chain around my neck at all times. Not tucked inside my shirt but outside, where everyone could see it.

Now what if, in the course of the quiet practice of my faith, a few of my fellow Chinese Christians conclude that the Chinese nation is evil and must be destroyed? Immersing themselves in the radical ideology of China-hating foreign Christians, they secretly plot mayhem. Time and again, the authorities catch them on the brink of launching a horrendous attack.

Many of my fellow Chinese citizens begin to glance at me with suspicion and dislike, noting the cross around my neck.

After years of attempted attacks, the Chinese government sets up a commission to investigate Christians — all of us — to see if we are encouraging extremism or failing to report suspicious activity in our Christian communities.

I feel a bit insulted just imagining it. A bit angry at the presumption of the government with all its might and weight and bureaucratic blunder probing into my life, simply because I’m a Christian. And I’m not too proud to say that I’m scared. With nowhere to run. China is my country.

That done, I understood Congressman Ellison’s feelings better. But I can’t get around my own truth.

I’m not a Christian in China, nor a Muslim in America. I’m one of the Americans the extremist Muslims are targeting. And I’m uneasy about the homegrown turn this rabidity has taken. So I admire Congressman Peter King for having the guts, at long last, to name the beast and begin to track it.

But I’m also proud of the voices raised against him, proud of the fierce debate this inquiry has ignited. I’m delighted to be a citizen of a country that zealously guards its principles, no matter what tormenting challenges arise to weaken those ideals.

I suspect, however, that I am not the only one who is severely vexed by the choices that violent religious extremists force us to face. Our culture, our economy, our very infrastructure are targeted for destruction.

We must survive. Yet, are we still Americans, in the doctrinal sense of the word, if we compromise our founding principles? It seems that support for one — survival or principle — undermines the other.

Tedious though it may be, it is imperative that Congressman King’s committee tease out the true enemies in our midst without betraying the fundamentals of our ethos.

Severely vexing, indeed. But we would do well to remember that while a country without principles is dead already, the grave of a nation offers few podiums for proclaiming any principles at all.